"Women are superior to men. In every way, shape, and form." [sic]

glennmagusharvey

> My mom believes that to a point. She has thinks that men have slightly
more excuse to have multiple partners because sense humans have been
around, women would die very early, and men would live on, being able to
have children till the day they died.

But women have higher life expectancy.

> Any female character that isn't a Man With Tits gets derided as sexist.

No, the category of "Men With Tits" also gets criticized as sexist.  So in other words, the problem isn't what sort of female character, it's that people will almost inevitably ask about the connotations about sexism when female characters appear.

Gelzo

Childbirth before modern medicine had a much more significant death rate.

RedEyedAbyss

^^That seems to happen more often with media geared towards a male audience. Of course, people will mostly shut up if the character is simply well-written enough.

Iaculus

And that's it right there. if people are accusing your female characters of being sexist, it's probably because you haven't written them well enough, or with enough depth and personality. Details of whether or not they can cook are largely irrelevant.

Chagen

Well, good thing I put as much emphasis on them as I do on my male characters.

I try, in my writing, to make a character's gender matter as little as possible when it comes to characterization. Unless, they NEED to be a certain gender (the whole storyline to Full Auto, for example, would fall apart unless Mark is a guy or Ulna is a girl)

MillerCross

I try, in my writing, to make a character's gender matter as little as possible when it comes to characterization.

I always considered this line of thought dangerous to a good story. Mostly because I think that gender does affect a person and who they are. Which means you gotta characterize them around their gender (Among many other features). It's when you show a preference to them for their gender and start favoring the plot to them for it, ro when you simply use stereotypes and gender role that the story is sexist.

Chagen

Well, what I meant was that for me at least, "character" first, "gender" second.

Forzare

^^^ Why did you name a character after your forearm?

MillerCross

I know. My point is simply that gender is important to characterization and that there's nothing inherently sexist to that. 

Chagen

For: Didn't even notice that....it's a random name I made up on the spot.

Technically her name is "Eve" anyway.

Forzare

It just made me laugh for some reason and I wasn't sure if the reference was intentional.

Chagen

Yeah, it's a placeholder anyway.

Compared to everything else in Full Auto, it's downright normal....

glennmagusharvey

> Childbirth before modern medicine had a much more significant death rate.

Point taken.

> ^^That seems to happen more often with media geared towards a male audience. Of course, people will mostly shut up if the character is simply well-written enough.

You're right, I forgot about this aspect.  You have "traditionally male" genres such as action, adventure, thriller, and such, and then you have "traditionally female" genres like slice-of-life and romance.  I'd like to see more mixing.

> Mark is a guy or Ulna is a girl

Aerith and Bob?

> I try, in my writing, to make a character's gender matter as little as possible when it comes to characterization.

I don't quite know how to do that, so when I come up with characters, I try to base them off of existing characters, adding/subtracting/tweaking characterization to make them as three-dimensional as possible.  This "porting" also includes their gender, as well as various character design traits.